Yesterday I read an article in the paper about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, basically it's a huge seed store under Antarctica, if Donald gets twitchy fingers and pushes a button, survivors will be able to make there way over to the seed vault to get some seeds. They're keeping a few of everything, it's a bit like Noahs Arc for seeds.

It got me thinking maybe I should store all my seeds in a tupperware box in the freezer -- at least I would know where they all were! And apparently they should last forever, which would be a bonus because I don't think I have been able to store seeds properly for more than 2/3 years.

What puts me off from trying this is that whenever I have put 'difficult' seeds in the fridge for a couple of weeks as advised on the packet, I have always had a terrible germination rate, but that could just be because they were difficult seeds.

2 Answers

I have read about people freezing seeds, and after all many seeds would naturally freeze in the winter if they were left outside on the ground. You would have to remove all the moisture from the seeds before freezing and then keep them in an airtight and watertight container in the freezer.

Also you would have to think about how you were going to defrost them, you would have to store them in small individual packets withing your larger container because you wouldn't want to defrost a pack and then refreeze the ones you did not use.

Maybe seal them in a plastic bag with a sachet of silica before freezing to ensure all the moisture has gone, do not freeze the silica.

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